


triptych

by dustofwarfare



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background OT4, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Canon, Slow Burn, Voyeurism, Worldbuilding, original ending canon divergent, playing with canon lore, prophecies are tricky, rituals and ceremonies, scythes are badass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-09-30 21:16:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17231345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustofwarfare/pseuds/dustofwarfare
Summary: Gladio can’t say he knows all that much about metaphysics, prophecies or the intricacies of creation, but he’s been a warrior long enough to know all about what it takes to heal something when it’s broken. Mostly just time and patience, and the knowledge that healing never comes without a little pain.____Noctis survives the coming of the Dawn -- but he's not the only one who escapes the prophecy unscathed.As such, Gladio finds himself bound as Shield to the two new kings of Lucis -- the Chosen King, Noctis Lucis Caelum, King of Light...and Ardyn Lucis Caelum, the Starscourge Incarnate, King of Night.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [freosan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/freosan/gifts).



> For Freosan, who is one of my favorite writers in this fandom and whose world-building always leaves me in awe. Freosan, this fic turned into a monster with a life of its own, and I hope very much that you'll enjoy what I've come up with for your prompt!
> 
> (All the relationships in this fic -- background OT4, Ardyn/Noctis, Gladio/Ardyn, and Gladio/Ardyn/Noctis -- are consensual.)
> 
> Thanks to [redacted] for the beta and cheerleading! Any remaining mistakes are my own.

There’s a moment where Gladio doesn’t think anything has changed.

The sky is the same as its always been; clouds sickly green and roiling like a storm, the dark clinging like static.

But then the sky begins to _churn_ , and the thing they’ve all waited for, hoped for and fought for ( _died for_ ) finally happens.

The dawn breaks at last, and the cheers echo off the broken rubble that was once the Crown City. Maybe it’s just Gladio’s imagination that he thinks they’re calling Noct’s name. But maybe it isn’t.

The three of them stand where they fought, in front of the steps to the Citadel. Around them, the ruin that is Insomnia wakes up after her long sleep, and as good as it is to see the sun….

“Looks kinda bad, doesn’t it?” Prompto says, bouncing on his feet like he’s trying to achieve liftoff. “Uh. The city, I mean.”

Trust Prompto to be the first to put it into words. But he’s not wrong. The city looks like what it is -- a warzone almost eleven years abandoned and ravaged by daemons. Gladio grew up running along these streets during quiet mornings, and everything around him is nigh unrecognizable.

“Yeah,” Gladio says. Something hysterical bubbles up inside of him -- a laugh, a sob, maybe both. “Like when somebody turns the lights on after the club closes, and you see what a shithole the place is.”

“You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here,” Ignis deadpans.

The three of them look at each other, and it’s that moment of familiar banter that does them in.

_Showtime._

_Let’s hope it’s not a tragedy._

_Sure ain’t a comedy._

Ten years and countless battles without each other, and all it takes is this one -- the _last_ one -- for them to remember how it was. And that’s when they remember who isn’t standing with them, beside them, and who never will be again.

Prompto wipes a hand across his face. Gladio turns his to the sun, and Iggy does the same -- he can’t see, but he should be able to feel the heat and press of the light all the same -- and none of them want to say his name.

As if, in keeping it quiet and silent and to themselves, they won’t have to admit the truth.

The sun came back, but Noct -- Noct  --

“Hey.”

As one, the three of them turn back toward the Citadel. And there, on the steps -- dirty and with parts of his clothes burned, a cut on his forehead and his father’s sword held tight in his hand, is Noctis Lucis Caelum, alive and well enough to be standing on his own two feet.

“Noct?” Ignis says, stepping forward. “ _Noctis_? Is that really -- is it --”  

“Yeah, Iggy,” Prompto says, around a sob. “It is.”

Gladio steps forward, sword raised despite the scream of protest from his arm, blinking furiously past the blinding rash of tears stinging his eyes. “Not just Noct,” he growls, his eyes going immediately to the figure standing beside him.

Someone else who is supposed to be dead, and somehow isn’t.

“It’s okay,” Noctis assures them. “We -- we worked it out.”

“Oh, my gods,” Prompto breathes, in the ensuing silence. “We all died, didn’t we? That’s what this is. We all died, and _we got the bad ending_.”

“Nah,” Noct says, with a small smile. “We got the good one, I just didn’t feel like watching the credits. Like _Ars Animus 5,_ remember _?_ ”

“Yeah, I remember you never saw the credits because you never beat that game,” says Prompto, his voice climbing to an octave that only dogs can hear. “You couldn’t defeat that last boss ‘cause you didn’t level up any bless skills!”

“Wanna clear up what the hell happened without the video game references?” Gladio asks, voice gruff. There’ll be time enough for fondness once he figures out what the _fuck_ is going on, here. “What’s _he_ doing here, and why ain’t he dead like he’s supposed to be?”

“I guess I finally leveled up those bless skills,” Noct says, and then, “Let’s go find the save point and I’ll explain.”

The three of them walk up the stairs to join the King of Light, who stands beside the one person none of them thought they’d ever see again.

Ardyn Lucis Caelum, the Accursed, sweeps them a bow. “Gentlemen,” he says, and his voice makes Gladio want to punch him in the throat. “Welcome home.”

***

Noctis’s explanation of the final battle leaves a lot to be desired.

Apparently, when he went to deliver the killing blow….he’d decided not to. “I kept thinking about what I saw when I was in the Crystal,” Noct says. “How his family -- _our_ family -- cast him aside when all he wanted to do was cure the world of the Scourge.”

“You defied the gods for _Ardyn_?” Gladio asks, because that does not sound like Noct.

“No,” Noct says, and then softly, “I did it because of Luna. She -- she showed me another way.”

“Who he _killed_ , remember,” Prompto says, glaring at Ardyn.

“I know,” Noct says, softly. “I know, Prompto.” Noct looks so different, aged ten years, and Gladio hasn’t had enough time to get used to the change. He still expects Noct to look like he did that day in Graela, clean-shaven and youthful.

But none of them are young anymore, and the only one who looks no different is Ardyn.

“It’s hard to explain,” Noct continues, and there’s something he’s not telling them, Gladio just _knows_ it. “But...Luna told me this was okay, and I trust her more than I trust the Astrals.”  

Of course he would. Unlimited power and the ability to burn the world in the fires of creation, versus a childhood bond and a magic book delivered by a dog...Noct would go for the dog and the magic book any daya. Gladio can’t even say he’s surprised. Noct is the most loyal person he’s ever met in his life. “Ardyn isn’t worth defying the Gods, Noct.”

Honestly, Noct is acting as if he’s back working that sushi job in high school and is giving a customer a refund because they didn’t like their Cactuar Roll. Even though they ate the entire thing, including the side of ginger and all the wasabi.

“ _His Majesty_ decided he would rather, how did you put it, _make up for past wrongs_ and see I get the adoration and respect I deserve.”

“You added that last part,” Noct points out. “I just said the part about making up for past wrongs. I’ll still -- you know. Kill you, whenever you want. But you should get the chance to set things straight, first. I won’t be responsible for erasing you from history. Not this time.”

And course Noctis didn’t think it was fair that Ardyn die and be forgotten. This was the same man who caught a fish and had it grilled by a five-star chef in Galdin Quay to give to a hungry cat who was too picky to eat it raw. The same Noct who dragged them all over the countryside looking for a broken-down delivery van full of vegetables, because some guy in Lestallum asked him to...when _he didn’t even like vegetables._

The same Noct who insisted on finding stalled motorists and bringing them repair kits. Who made them spend _hours_ in the Vesperpool catching frogs “for science”. Who once refused to leave a tomb to obtain a royal arm just to get Iggy some fucking mushrooms that were “only a little further in.”  Noct, who always stopped for every photo Prompto wanted and who went looking for flowers with Gladio for Iris --

“Gladio? Hey, big guy?” Prompto peers at him. “You okay, there?”

Gladio is not okay. His shoulders are shaking and he’s making a noise like he’s laughing, but his face is also wet and no, how could he possibly be _okay_?

“You defied the gods because you _felt bad for Ardyn_ ,” Gladio manages, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Like Ardyn is that _fucking cat._ ”

“I knew you were going to bring up that cat, I _knew_ it.” Noct smiles at him, and as strange as he looks this way, aged ten years all at once like a lightning strike, he’s so familiar and so _Noct_ that Gladio can’t help the grin that wants to break free -- even though he tries, because for fuck’s sake, Noct.

“I missed you,” Gladio says, gruff. “And I kinda want to punch you.”

“Not this again,” Prompto groans. “There aren’t any marlboros around for us to blow up and bond over, covered in evil plant slime and chugging every antidote we have.” He pauses. “Right, Ardyn? There are no malboros?”

“There are no more daemons,” Ardyn answers, examining his nails. “If that’s what you’re asking.”

“Ardyn sort of.” Noct looks a little green. “Consumed them. Uh. All. At once? Be glad you missed that part.”  

Ardyn holds his fingers up to his mouth and kisses them, like a gourmand praising a meal.

To his horror, Gladio sees Ignis looking -- maybe _interested_ isn’t the right word, but _intrigued_ enough that he hopes Noct continues talking. He does not want to hear about what daemons taste like, or be subjected to Ignis's inevitable questions.  

“Anyway,” Noct continues. “That’s the deal we made. He’s still the Scourge but the daemons are all inside of him. And he’ll keep them at bay while we rebuild. He and I will rule together, though it’s probably best if no one knows he’s here.”

“And Ardyn?” Ignis asks, thankfully moving on from daemon consumption. “You’re all right with that?”

“I suppose. I’d like to finally take my rightful place as King of Lucis, but the notion of being dragged in chains by angry citizens, well...been there, done that, got the thousand-year vendetta, if you will.” Ardyn says. “As I told dear Noct, I would like to be _praised_ for my remarkable ability to manifest the Scourge. Placate me and I shall keep Lucis, and I suppose all of Eos, safe from the fiends. You have quite the task ahead, rebuilding the world. I might be able to help, were I to be asked _nicely_.”

“Are we to just allow you the responsibilities of ruling a kingdom, when all you’ve proven is how adept you are at tearing one down?” Ignis demands.

“That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think? After all, I _was_ quite successful in my time as Niflheim’s Chancellor. I know a thing a two about the minutiae of running a government.”

Gladio exchanges a glance with Prompto. He can’t help but think that Ardyn has some ulterior motive, here. “Why should we believe you? For all we know, the second we turn our backs on you, you’ll send a horde of daemons to murder us in our sleep.”

Ardyn shrugs, looking unconcerned. “ _His Majesty_ is still the only one who can deliver me to oblivion, when the time comes. To encourage his wrath means facing an eternity in chains with only the shriek of the Scourge for company."

“So you’re simply postponing the inevitable?” Ignis asks. “All for a few years of being treated like a king?”

“I suppose so,” Ardyn says, then, “I tried to save the world, once. I received two thousand years in bondage as a reward. Forgive me if I’m easily convinced by the alternative.”

Gladio thinks about Luna, lying dead on a water-soaked altar amid the Tidemother’s rage. About Ignis, those first few days when he realized he was blind. Noct, drowning in his own misery on the train. The long, cold trek to find Prompto in Gralea. Those few helpless moments in the Keep, when Gladio watched the King of Lucis consumed and trapped by the very thing that was supposed to save them all.

He doesn’t plan on forgiving Ardyn a goddamn thing. This whole thing is utter lunacy, but if Noct is determined to see it through, then Gladio will do as he pledged when he was fifteen and see Noct safe on his throne….no matter what danger lurks behind it, smiling like a snake and promising _no, really, this time I’ll behave._


	2. Chapter 2

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Gladio asks, watching Noct from where he’s sprawled in the bed. “Because I’m not real sure you do.”

“That whole thing where you were glad I’m back sure didn’t last, did it,” Noct says, smiling. 

Gladio knows Noct’s teasing, he does, but it still makes him frown to hear that. “You know that ain’t true, c’mon.”

“Of course he’s glad, Noct, duh. He’s  _ Gladio _ ,” Prompto says, from under a pile of blankets next to him. “Right there in the name.” 

“Never heard that one before,” Gladio says, nudging at the Prompto-shaped lump. “Happy to show you just how glad I am, Noct, whenever you want, but...I’m still your Shield, and I got a few concerns. That’s all.” 

Noctis runs a hand through his hair, which is still wet from his shower. “This is about Ardyn, yeah?” 

Prompto emerges from the blankets, his own hair hanging in his face -- without product, it’s longer than it looks when he has it styled. “Yesterday he asked me if I knew where his car ended up, and if I could find it and fix it for him.”

“What did you say?” Gladio asks, but he has a pretty good idea. 

“Uh. No? Dude kidnapped me off a train, then chained me up on a wall after he made me blow up my biological dad who’d turned into a gun monster. Fix your own fucking car,” Prompto says, eyes narrowed. “Besides, if we don’t get the Regalia, he doesn’t get his mobster car. That’s the rule. Make it a rule, Noct.” 

“I declare it so,” Noct says, shrugging into his shirt. “I’ll let Iggy know to draft it into law first thing.” 

“Why’s he up so early, anyway? His alarm went off at like, five minutes past ridiculous this morning.” Prompto stretches and then starts rubbing Gladio’s chest, fingers dancing light and quick over the stark lines of his tattoo. 

“Probably meetings. He goes to more than I do.” Noct glances at Prompto. “You should take him some breakfast. I’m pretty sure he didn’t make time to eat any.” 

“Sure,” Prompto says, agreeable as ever. “I’m going to head out and take some photographs for the civil engineering team. And, y’know. Maybe visit the royal stables.” He smiles. “I’ll bring Iggy some breakfast and the precious baby chocobos some greens.” 

“Just don’t mix them up,” Noct says, making a face. King or no, he still balks at the idea of eating a vegetable. 

“Not everyone hates green things as much as you, Your Majesty,” Prompto teases, then leans in and gives Gladio a kiss before wriggling out of bed, all energy like he’s somehow siphoned caffeine out of the air. Then again, if Iggy made coffee before leaving the royal suite, it’s possible there’s enough left in the resulting fumes to fuel Prompto’s entire body. 

A body Gladio thoroughly enjoys watching as Prompto walks naked toward the bath. Plumbing was one of the first issues to be dealt with, and showering -- while it was sometimes dicey as far as water pressure and the temperature was not always the warmest  -- was a recent, welcome addition. Gladio would be happy if he never had to take a bath again, ever. He very rarely fit in the tubs, which were made for people more Prompto and Noct’s size than his. 

He glances over at Noct, fully expecting to see Noct giving Prompto’s ass a look, too -- but instead, Noct is looking at  _ him _ . He’s dressed in the suit he generally wears when he has meetings, as casual a thing as he can get away with and still be kingly. His shirt and vest are both buttoned, but he’s still barefoot and probably going to try and skip the tie. 

“What’s up?” Gladio asks, because he knows Noct’s looks by now and there isn’t anything playful in this one. 

“I -- need to talk to you about Ardyn. But I didn’t want to do it with Prompto here, not yet.” Noct, for all he’s risen to the tasks of leadership with grace and determination, still sometimes manages to look like the twenty year-old he occasionally thinks he is. He sits next to Gladio on the edge of the bed, hands folded. He still wears the Ring of the Lucii, though Gladio doesn’t know why considering the Crystal is no more. He also wears a ring that belonged to his father, an old Lucis Caelum signet ring, that the King was never without.

(“Where’d you get that?” Gladio asked, when first he saw it on Noct’s finger. That ring would have been on Regis when he died, which meant….

Noct rubbed over the stone with his thumb and turned it on his finger -- his hands were smaller, and the ring was a bit loose. “Ardyn,” he said, and Gladio didn’t ask any other questions.)

“You’ve needed to talk to me about Ardyn since the moment you didn’t kill him,” Gladio says bluntly. He’s the King’s Shield. Let Iggy use tact if he wants. “Or maybe before, so I could’ve told you the Astrals maybe had a few good points in their  _ kill Ardyn _ plan.” 

“Didn’t realize you were so pious,” Noct says, with a short laugh. 

“Ain’t about piety.” Gladio pushes himself up so he’s sitting with his back to the headboard, the sheet pooling in his lap. He’s naked, because his body temperature runs hot and sharing a bed with three people doesn’t help keep him cool. “It’s about practicality. He’s a threat. I’m supposed to remove those. Sorta my job.” 

“Ardyn’s no threat to me,” Noct says, his chin tilting up. “I’m the only one who can kill him and he knows it. And I think he likes annoying me with all his suggestions too much for me to send him to the Beyond.”

“I just can’t believe Lady Lunafreya really wanted you to give  _ the Accursed  _ a job.” 

“Wasn’t that, so much as she doesn’t want him to be forgotten,” Noct says. “She said that’s what caused all this in the first place. That, and people exiling and banishing Ardyn instead of dealing with him for what he’d become.” 

“Pretty sure he lost any sympathy I might have had when he plunged the world into daemon-infested terror. You --” Gladio has to literally bite his lip to keep himself from finishing that sentence, but it doesn’t matter. 

Noct does it for him. “I wasn’t there. I know. Believe me.” He glances down at his hands again and sighs. Then his shoulders straighten and he goes back to looking kingly. “You know what? Sometimes I think that all of this -- the Scourge, the Night, my being the Chosen King, Luna having to die...all these prophecies, the magic, everything. It’s like the Astrals just did it all so we’d fix their mistakes for them.” 

Gladio’s eyebrows rise. “I had this cousin once who was disowned because he was in some radical anti-monarchy, anti-Astrals group. I forgot the name but they used to have their meetings in the back of an arcade on King Street.” 

“That one sucked,” Noct says, making a face. “The token machine always jammed and the second joystick on  _ Kefka’s Tower  _ was broken, and you couldn’t win that last level without two players.” 

Gladio shakes his head with a fond laugh. “Noct.” 

“What? It’s true. Anyway, I’m still doing what the Astrals want. Sorta. Just...in my own way.” 

Gladio really shouldn’t be surprised, Noct always had been pretty stubborn. “I trust you, Noct. But I also made a vow, and I’m an Amicitia. My job is to protect you.” 

“Actually. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” Noct’s eyes search his. “Gladio. You still want to be my Shield, don’t you?” 

“Noct, what the  _ fuck _ \--” Gladio starts, leaning forward, but he’s surprised when Noct reaches out and presses his fingers to his mouth. Normally, Gladio would suck them, use his tongue and watch Noct’s dark eyes go all hot and drowsy. He’s always loved making Noctis shudder and moan and lose his goddamn mind beneath him. 

“You made that pledge when you were fifteen, before the world was upended and before you spent ten years hunting daemons in the dark,” Noct says, as if Gladio needs reminding. “It’s only fair that you should be given a chance to make a choice.” He drops his hand. 

“Already made it, and I ain’t ever going back on it. You tryin’ to replace me or something? Is that it?” Gladio narrows his eyes. “Guess I’ve been going too easy on you when we spar.” 

“You’ve never gone easy on me a day in my life,” Noct retorts, then flashes a grin at him. “Or a night.” 

Gladio groans. “That was bad and you should feel bad. Would you get to the point? Prompto’s gonna be done in the bathroom soon, and I need a shower.” 

“The vows you took were to be the Shield for the King of Lucis,” Noct says, serious again. 

“I was there, I remember,” Gladio says, stretching, and then -- he crosses his arms over his bare chest. “Wait.” 

“There’s not just one King of Lucis, anymore,” Noct points out, though he doesn’t need to.  

Gladio  _ stares  _ at him. “He’s immortal and you’re the only one who can kill him. Why’s  _ he _ need a Shield?” 

“If it were  _ me _ , would you let that stop you from being one?” Noct asks. 

“Well, no, but it ain’t you, it’s him and he’s -- Noct, you can’t seriously expect me to be okay with this,” Gladio argues, but he has a feeling he’s going to have to be. 

“No. I knew you wouldn’t be. And there’s….uh. Another option.” Noct exhales slowly. “You’re not going to like it.” 

“Probably not, but what is it?” 

“If you’re my Shield and you don’t want to share, then Ardyn needs one of his very own. And there’s one more Amicitia who can do the job --” 

“Iris. My sister, the Daemon Slayer, Shield to the Daemon King?” Gladio laughs, but he’s not all that amused. “Hell, no.” Gladio stares up at the high ceiling of the royal bedchamber, wondering whose room this was, back before Insomnia fell. There were a lot more nobles back then. There were a lot more  _ people,  _ period.  “He wants me, he can have me. But I ain’t so sure he’s gonna like what that means.” 

“I think he probably will,” Noct says, and stands. “Thank you. I know how you feel about this whole thing.” 

What Gladio doesn’t understand is what  _ Noct  _ feels about this whole thing. Namely, about Ardyn. Sometimes Gladio sees Noct watching the King of Night, whenever Ardyn joined them for dinner or council meetings. The two of them tend to gravitate toward each other whenever they’re in each other’s space, like stars falling into orbit around one sun. 

Once, in bed, Gladio almost asked Noct about it. They were lying side by side, heads turned toward each other, and Gladio slid his fingers into Noct’s pretty mouth, in and out, and he thought about saying  _ do you want him here, too, Noct? Between your thighs, sucking your cock like Prompto is right now, like Ignis is sucking mine? Do you want him to fuck you, even though he’s not human?  _

Gladio didn’t mention it then, and he doesn’t think now is the time to bring it up, either. But the thought is like a bad idea that won’t go away, and the worst part is he doesn’t think he’d be all that surprised if Noct said  _ yes.  _

He still remembers the way Noct  _ flirted  _ with Ardyn, years ago, on that drive to meet the Earthshaker. 

_ What if I ride with you?  _

Ignis had chided him, later.  _ Noct, really, we know nothing about the man.  _ Oh, those were the days, weren’t they? When Ardyn was just a mysterious, vaguely helpful and sort of sleazy stranger with an obnoxious car? 

“I know you feel bad that Ardyn tried to save the world and ended up the Big Bad, but...is it really worth it?” Gladio knows he’s harping on this, but he can’t help it. It just seems so unlike Noct, so unlike everything Noct trained to do and to become, to  _ let Ardyn live.  _

“I’m sure,” Noct says, his voice soft. “I know you don’t trust him. You don’t have to. Just trust me, okay? Trust  _ me _ .” 

“Yeah, as long as it’s not about the best Cup Noodle flavor or omelet fillings, I do trust you.” Gladio throws the covers aside and stands up. He wants to trust Noct, and he  _ does _ , but he’s also not stupid and there’s definitely something Noct isn’t telling him. He grabs Noct by the shoulder and turns him around. “But you can trust  _ me _ , too, you know. Been over this a thousand times, ain’t we? I got your back. Always. We might rub each other the wrong way all the time, but that’s only ‘cause I’m more concerned about you staying safe than stayin’ on your good side.”  

“I know. That’s why I know I can trust you to do whatever Ardyn wants when you swear your oath as Shield to him.” Noct slides his hands down Gladio’s chest, the touch drawing a shiver of arousal even though Gladio is less than thrilled at the idea an actual  _ ceremony _ . “And you make up for rubbing me wrong when you rub me right, like you did last night.” 

“Stop,” Gladio groans. “This isn’t sexy, it’s painful.” He doesn’t mean that, and they both know it. Gladio slides an arm around Noct’s trim waist and pulls him closer. “We can’t just count the ceremony I already had for you, and call it good?”

“Feel free to suggest it to His Majesty, if you want.” Noct reaches up to tangle his fingers in Gladio’s thick dark hair and tug. “He’s, you know.  _ A perfectly reasonable man. _ ” Noct’s Ardyn impression is actually not quite as good as Iggy’s, but it’s getting better. 

“Though I  _ was _ suggesting it to His Majesty,” Gladio says, leaning down. “Still gonna take a lot for me to call that guy anything _. _ ” With that, he presses his mouth to Noct’s and kisses him, thrilled as always that he still gets to have this, that Noct didn’t leave them along with the Night. 

“Heyyyy, kissing party!” Prompto emerges from the bathroom, dressed and his hair fixed, defying gravity as usual. “And looks like I’ve got my very own invite!” 

Noct is only a little mussed when he finally leaves for his meeting, and Gladio gives him a pass and doesn’t remind him about the tie. 

***

“Got a question for you,” Gladio says to gnis, later, when they finish running through a few sparring exercises. Ignis is as fastidious about staying in shape now as he was during the Night. As he says,  _ the sun didn’t take away the monsters, now they’re just hiding in bright light instead of shadows.  _

In other words, Ignis is too paranoid to give up old habits and let finely-honed reflexes fade. Gladio approves. Iggy’s job might be more about strategies and planning nowadays, but he’s still Crownsguard. Still a fighter. 

“And I’m sure I’ve an answer,” Ignis replies smoothly. “One or two, depending on the question.” 

“I’m sure you do,” Gladio says, huffing a laugh. He nods to a few of the younger Crownsguard who pass them on their way to the training room. Gladio can tell they’re young and likely new, simply from the looks of awe on their faces as they stop and hastily bow to Gladio and Ignis. 

“....heard he can hear a cotton ball fall on a pillow since he can’t see!” one of the Crownsguard says, too excited to lower his voice as they head into the vacated training arena. 

“As if that’s useful in any particular way,” Ignis mutters, shaking his head. “Honestly, that’d only be of any use if I were a chambermaid, and even then I question what that knowledge would accomplish.” 

“They’re just impressed, and hey, it might not be useful but I still bet you could do it. And you’d look hot in one of those frilly uniforms.” Gladio laughs. “And hey, I’m pretty sure you could hear Prompto’s underwear hitting the bed from the next room, and that’s the same thing, ain’t it?” 

“Simply because Prompto is often quite enthusiastic during the removal of said underwear,” Ignis says, mouth quirking into a smile. “That’s a far greater tell than any sound the fabric may or may not make.” 

Gladio snorts. “True enough. Look, I’ll just put this to you straight. You think Noct is telling the truth about Ardyn, and why he let him live?” He glances around, sees they’re in a small courtyard full of recently planted flowers and an elegant fountain, and heads toward one of the comfortable benches so they can continue their talk. 

The flowers are all sylleblossoms. The fountain is a memorial to Lady Lunafreya, though privately Gladio has to wonder if it’s not a little tacky to have a water feature for a memorial, considering how -- and where -- Lady Lunafreya died. But then again, it wasn’t the water or even the Tidemother that killed her, was it? 

It’s a nice spot, regardless -- quiet, and peaceful, and Ignis moves smoothly to sit next to him. 

“I wasn’t aware you put it any other way,” Ignis says. “And I consider myself something of an expert on taking what you give.” 

Gladio’s always appreciated Ignis’s sense of humor, even now, when he’s not really in the mood for jokes. “Yeah, well, that’s true enough. And you don’t hesitate to cut to the quick, so do it and tell me what you think.” 

“If that was a sexual innuendo, I think I’m insulted.” 

“It wasn’t,” Gladio assures him. “You’re the opposite of a hair trigger, you fucking sadist, you know you like to make us all beg.”  

Ignis gives a low chuckle and spreads his arms out on either side of the bench, face turned up to the sky. From this angle, Gladio can just see the ravaged skin on his face from where the Ring burned clean through with holy fire. He’s kissed those marks, felt the texture of them on his tongue. 

“No,” Ignis says, finally. “I don’t. Well, let me amend that. I think Noct is telling the truth in that there is a reason he spared Ardyn’s life, but I think he has not shared that truth with us in its entirely, no.” 

“You mean you don’t think he thwarted the gods just because he felt bad for Ardyn being royally fucked over, pun intended?” Gladio puts his hands behind his head, turning his own face up to the sun. The sky is a perfect deep cloudless blue, the same color as the sylleblossoms flowering around them. 

“Well, this is the same Noct who, while we were all miserable after Altissia, made us wait to board the train to Gralea so he could help that woman round up a herd of missing chocobo chicks,” Ignis says. “But, no, I don’t think he’s given us the real reason.” 

“That don’t bother you? And don’t give me that crap about  _ of course not, I trust my king _ , either. I know you trust him, so do I. Don’t mean I’m never gonna have a problem with some of his decisions.” 

“I wasn’t going to say that, though of course I trust Noct, implicitly, as I know you do as well.” Ignis is quiet for a long moment, the only noise the occasional chirp of a bird and the happy burbling of the fountain. “And that’s why I’m almost certain he is  _ not  _ telling us the truth of why he spared Ardyn. But I -- Gladio, I saw the prophecy as the gods intended it to end. Noctis, seated on the throne, while the Kings of Lucis drove their weapons one by one into his heart. The last, and killing blow, delivered by his own father.” 

Gladio feels a chill despite the warmth of the afternoon sun. “That’s -- well. It’s terrible, but no way would Noct keep Ardyn alive just to avoid his own death.” 

“Indeed,” Ignis says. “In the vision I saw, Noctis faced his death with his same stubborn determination as ever. To save the world, I think he would endure far more. Whatever reason he was given by Lady Lunafreya, it must have been quite compelling.” 

“You really think it was her?” Gladio asks. “That bastard Ardyn can look like people, remember, he tried to look like  _ me _ once.” 

“Yes, I do believe it was her. And I, too, question his reasoning and hope that in time, he will share it with us. But I must say, I am terribly glad that what I saw come to pass did not, in fact, happen. It would have broken my heart to know Noct lost his life in front of the throne where we met as children.” 

“Damn, Iggy,” Gladio says, shaking his head. “Me too, obviously. But I can’t help worrying about what it means that Ardyn is still alive, and if we’re just postponing something else that’s terrible. And -- I have to swear fealty to him. Ardyn.” He glances over, wondering if Iggy will be surprised, but of course he’s not. 

“Ah,” Ignis says. “Yes, I suppose that sounds like something he would want. Do you mean to do it?” 

“I took an oath. I’m an Amicitia. We’re the Shields for the Kings of Lucis. Not real sure what I’m supposed to protect him from, ‘cause the only thing that can kill him is Noct. And like hell am I gonna stop Noct from doing  _ that. _ ” Gladio rests his head back against the stone of the bench. “I ain’t scared of the guy, but I’m not real crazy about the idea of spending time with him.” 

“He’s...well. He can be rather engaging, if he’s not in a mood. He’s very knowledgeable, and in fact several of his suggestions about rebuilding in the style of old Solheim, particularly the aqueducts --” 

“Iggy.” 

“Ah, yes.” Ignis clears his throat. “At any rate, no doubt what he wants is the novelty of having a former adversary become a Shield. Though I do hope he doesn’t wish to augment your attire, I can’t imagine you in so many mismatched patterns.” 

“Yeah, like I always say, jacquard clashes with my tattoo,” Gladio jokes, getting to his feet. As much as he’s enjoying spending time with Iggy outside in this peaceful place, he’s got a ceremony to prepare for. 

They’re headed back inside when Ignis says, “You’re not really worried that Ardyn will try and harm you, are you?” 

Ignis, Gladio notes, never calls Ardyn  _ His Majesty  _ either. “Nah. It’s just a formality, but you know how that guy is. He’s probably just going to make me kneel and listen to some long-winded monologue.” 

Ignis snorts. “I would imagine. He is quite fond of hearing himself talk. Would you like us to be there, perhaps? Prompto and I are Crownsguard, it would make perfect sense for us to attend.” 

Gladio thinks about it for a moment, but he shakes his head. “Nah. I appreciate it. But that’s probably what he wants. And I’m  _ not  _ afraid of him. I’ve taken on an immortal before and won, so you know. Got a pretty good track record, there.” 

“Don’t be reckless,” Ignis chides, then leans in a presses a kiss to his mouth. “I shall give you something to think about while you’re subjected to his monologues, if you like.” 

“Tempting,” Gladio murmurs, kissing back. “But if I think about that and get too excited, Ardyn might get the wrong idea and think I’m really into hearing him talk.” 


	3. Chapter 3

For his farcical swearing in ceremony as Shield to the King of Night, Ardyn Lucis Caelum, Gladio wears his Crownsguard dress uniform. Every buckle is shining, every crease sharp and perfect, and his hair is worn neatly in a half-top knot. His boots are so polished, Prompto declares, “I can see my face in them! And, damn. I’m a looker. You guys are _lucky_.”

As for the ceremony itself, Gladio expects to go in front of Ardyn in the throne room, grit his teeth at Ardyn having a _right_ to sit there, kneel and swear he’ll uphold his vow as an Amicitia to serve as the Shield of the King.

It’s been very nearly two decades since Gladio took his oath to serve as Noct’s Shield, but he knows the words, could recite them even in his sleep. He sort of hopes Ardyn _will_ want him to say something else, give him some convoluted set of phrases in Old Lucian or the Solheim dialect (they don’t even use the same set of _letters_ ) _._ The idea of reciting words that meant so much for him to say, that made his father so proud when Gladio said them -- saying _those_ words to Ardyn? Yeah, no thanks. He’d rather pretend he forgot them.

They don’t go to the throne room. Instead, Noct leads him down to the room where the Lucian Crystal was once kept suspended in mithril chains from the ceiling. The chains had been severed when the Crystal was stolen, but they still dangled useless and broken from the rafters

Noct turns to him and says, “You have my solemn vow as the King of Light that no harm will come to you.”

“You’re really selling it,” Gladio says, but Noct’s face is serious and composed, so he schools his own features and bows. “Yes, Your Majesty. I’ll make you proud.”

“You always do.” Noct drops the king act for a minute, bumping Gladio’s shoulder with his own. “Thank you for trusting me, Gladio. It means a lot.”  With a last warm look, he heads toward the door, leaving Gladio alone.

Gladio turns around, slowly, taking in his surroundings. Trust Ardyn to make him wait in a dimly-lit cavernous room with a bunch of hanging chains, before forcing Gladio to listen to him being smug and infuriating.

Gladio hasn’t been down here since he was a kid and first saw the Crystal with his father and the King, which was a big deal at the time since most people never knew where it was.  But it reminds him uncomfortably of those last few moments in Gralea, Ardyn standing there patiently and laughing while they all tried unsuccessfully to kill him.

“We just kept it in a tent, when first it was given to us,” a voice says, from behind him. “No chains necessary, and I believe the floor was made out of dirt. The tent was only because of the light. It kept people up at night, it shone so bright.”

Gladio turns, and it takes him a moment to recognize the man standing there as Ardyn. Gone entirely is the clashing couture, the bright scarves and the accordion shirt with its ruffles and lace. Ardyn is dressed instead in Lucian royal black, which, fine, Gladio can’t argue he’s entitled to wear it, given who he is.

 _Was._ Sort of still is? Whatever.

His suit isn’t modern like Noct’s or some of Iggy’s, but it’s hard for Gladio -- who isn’t that interested in fashion -- to figure out why that is. Ardyn’s hair is even combed for once, worn in a style not dissimilar to Gladio’s own. Stripped bare of all the distractions he wears like some ostentatious desert predator trying to lure hapless creatures to their doom, Ardyn looks --

He looks like a King. A _Lucian_ king. Gladio isn’t sure if that makes this better, somehow, or worse.

“Look at you, put together so well for me.” Ardyn’s outfit is different but he’s wearing the same pair of boots he always does and even the same leg brace. That only strengthens his resemblance to the line of Lucis, which….he _is_ the line of Lucis, isn’t he? The very first, or he would have been. Hard to be the progenitor of a bloodline when you don’t have any blood.

“I take my job seriously,” Gladio says, trying not to stare as Ardyn steps before him. They’ve rarely been this close together, and Gladio forgets, sometimes, that Ardyn is one of the few men he knows who are almost as tall as he is.

Ardyn’s mouth twists a bit, but he inclines his head. “You do indeed. I heard you took on the Blademaster himself. That must have been quite a battle.”

Ardyn sounds -- impressed? Maybe. It’s hard to tell with him. Sincerity isn’t Ardyn’s strong suit.

Gladio inclines his head, still maintaining his posture. “Yeah. It was. He didn’t go easy on me, that’s for sure.” He remembers Ignis saying that Gilgamesh sequestered himself away during the Founder King’s reign. “Did you know him, the Blademaster?”

“Indeed. He served as the _dux belli_ to my family. War duke, I suppose is the best translation.”

“Before or after your brother betrayed you?” Gladio asks, sharp-voiced.

“Before,” Ardyn says. “I have no idea what precipitated his self-exile, but I do recall when the Crystal denied my ascension and my brother proclaimed me anathema and ordered my imprisonment, I called to him, asking if he would allow such a betrayal given the oaths he’d sworn. But his vaunted sword remained sheathed, and I ended up in chains. I would like to think he suffered a bit of a guilty conscience about that, but for all I know, he never once regretted it and his exile was simply because my brother had no use for him once Lucis was at peace.”

“He did say that Lucian warriors were coddled in times of peace,” Gladio remembers. “But he also said something about great men couldn’t come from such depravity, so I dunno. Maybe it was a bit of both.”

“Oh, if ever there was a man born to the sword it would have been him. A pity things worked out as they did, really. My brother and I, you see, we were well-matched as a _duumvirate --_ do you know that term? It is what Noct and I would be considered, now.”

“Uh.” Gladio’s Old Lucian isn’t bad, mostly because he’s always liked history. “It means, _two men_ , right?”

“Yes, but it’s used to describe a certain type of rulership. Rule of two kings. Had Somnus chosen to remain loyal to _me_ instead of the dragon god, we might have had such an arrangement, with Gilgamesh as our _dux belli_. But alas, history chose a different route, as did both the Blademaster and my brother, and here we are.”

“Yeah.” Gladio is suddenly curious, wondering what _he_ would have done, had it been him in that position. Would he have taken up arms against Somnus to defend the very embodiment of the Starscourge, a thing still so terrifying and unknown? A chill races down his spine, but he tilts his chin up. “Let’s get this over with.”

“If you insist. Tell me, do you have any idea why I wanted this done here, in the place where the Crystal once resided, rather than in front of the throne I now share with Noct?”

Hearing him call Noctis _Noct_ sets Gladio’s teeth on edge, as the nickname is intimate in a way that he doesn’t think Ardyn deserves. They may be dual kings or a _duumvirate_ , but as far as Gladio knows, they aren’t friends. “I figured you were going to tie me up in these chains or something. You seem to be into that.” He can’t help the last; remembering how they found Prompto, spread-eagle like a sacrifice on that cross.

Ardyn laughs, and the sound is full of nothing but honest amusement. “Oh, my dear Gladio. Why, you would look _lovely_ all strung up, I cannot deny that. But no, I have no intention of laying a hand -- or a mithril chain -- on you.”

Surprised, Gladio meets Ardyn’s amused gaze and says, “Yeah, definitely thought you’d take the opportunity to, I dunno. Do something nefarious. You have to admit you’re the type.”

Ardyn’s smile is wicked and slow. “Maybe so. But no, I chose this location for two simple reasons. One, I figured you might balk at the thought of kneeling to me in front of the throne you don’t think I deserve. Two, this location used to house the thing that kept Lucis safe from the daemons. As is happens, _I_ am now the thing that keeps Lucis safe from the daemons. It seemed fitting, don’t you think?”

It does, but Gladio’s mostly stuck on that first point. “You didn’t want to _upset_ me?”

“No, of course not. Gladio, I would have you make no vow you do not intend to keep. I have suffered before at the hands of those who were sworn to protect me, and who chose a god’s favor and superstition over their oaths of loyalty. I’m in no hurry to do so again, I assure you.”

And Gladio realizes, with some surprise, that he believes Ardyn actually means that. “You swear you’re gonna keep Lucis safe from the daemons?”

Ardyn’s eyes go distant and for a moment he looks -- cold, unapproachable, like some ancient thing ( _and he is, isn’t he, just like the Blademaster surrounded by the souls of those he’d slain_ ), and then...his face changes and there is the Scourge peeking out in the drain of white from the sclera of his eyes, making the gold shine bright like distant stars amid the black. “That is, in fact, all I have _ever_ wanted.”

“Then I’ll kneel and take my vow to protect you.” Gladio finds he almost prefers this, seeing Ardyn’s true face. He’s a warrior and a protector, and he likes to know the truth of what he’s getting himself into. Even if it never seems to work out that way.

Ardyn’s eyes clear, his face returning to that of a man. He holds his arms out, and his armiger lights up like red wings on either side of him. It casts sinister shadows on his face, but Gladio finds the sight compelling and even attractive, in a certain way. The crimson color of his royal weaponry suits him, flashy and hot where Noct’s is cool and composed.

Ardyn’s name isn’t proper Old Lucian, but Gladio knows it comes from the word meaning _to burn._ And Noctis, whose name means _night_ ….there is perhaps some sense to it, the King of Night who burns like fire, and the King of Light named after the night he brought back into proper balance.

Ardyn clearly enjoys showing off his royal arms -- he has far more than Noct, which Gladio surmises Ardyn _also_ enjoys -- and then he stops so he’s holding one that is most definitely not in Noct’s arsenal; a large scythe, and it’s so absurd that Gladio hears his snort of laughter before he can stop himself.

“Tch,” says Ardyn, but he doesn’t seem angry. “What sort of Shield laughs at his liege’s chosen weapon?”

Gladio’s so amused, he doesn’t even wince at Ardyn referring to himself as his _liege._ “Seriously? A _scythe_?”

“I was a healer, Gladiolus,” Ardyn says, sounding a bit huffy. He waves the scythe about like a demented composer enticing a field full of wheat to sing. _Or else._

“Yeah,” Gladio says, laughing outright. “I know. But that -- you know. Is a huge, fuck-off _scythe_. Not really the kind of thing you think about a healer using in battle.”

“Well, that’s because you don’t know anything about healers,” Ardyn says, for the first time sounding honestly _offended_ and that’s sort of nice, humanizing in a way Ardyn’s theatrics never are. “A scythe, my handsome Shield, is not a _weapon_ . It is a tool used to clear fields and reap crops. And as a healer, I took a vow to never raise my hand against another in violence, _except to protect my hearth and home_.”

“Oh,” Gladio says. “Huh. Never thought of it that way.”

“And it’s far more impressive than a garden hoe,” Ardyn says, waving it a bit. “Don’t you think?”

Gladio would make a bad pun, were this Ignis. And it actually takes most of his self-restraint not to make one anyway. Or to point out that despite the pretty words about not taking up arms except to protect his home and field, Ardyn has about thirty-something swords, a few axes, a couple of clubs, a mace and a wicked-looking pair of daggers that Ignis would probably love swirling around in his magic armiger arsenal. “Yeah. It is.”

“All right, then. Now, let’s get on with it.”

“You want me to say something?” Gladio asks, eyeing him.

“Well, yes, but...I’ll leave that up to you. It needn’t be too flowery, Gladiolus.” Ardyn _winks,_ looking very pleased with himself.

“Ha, ha, never heard the flower puns before.” Gladio takes a deep breath, looks at the scythe resting in Ardyn’s hand and thinks, _I’m either kneeling to take a vow before the King of Night, or about to be beheaded by the Starscourge._

But he trusts Noctis, and so, with one last glance at Ardyn, he kneels and puts his fisted hand over his heart. “I swear to serve as Shield to the Kings of Lucis,” he says. “Noctis and Ardyn Lucis Caelum, you have my sword, my shield, and my service until such time as I can no longer serve with valor and strength. Please accept my vow of loyalty, sworn this day on good faith that the kings to whom I give my service are worthy of protecting. On my family name, Amicitia, do I make this vow.”

There’s silence for a long moment, and Gladio keeps his head bowed. He can see the edges of Ardyn’s boots as he moves closer, and he feels the air around him stir as Ardyn uses the scythe the same way Regis used his sword, touching each of Gladio’s shoulders lightly.

“Your service is accepted,” Ardyn says, and all the glib pretentiousness is gone from his voice entirely. “Rise and take your place.”

Gladio gets smoothly to his feet, and the scythe is gone, vanished back into Ardyn’s Armiger. Ardyn’s face is serious, and there’s something -- wistful, almost aching, in his expression. “My sincerest hope that should your vows be tested, you will perform better than the last man who swore so to protect me.”

For the first time, Gladio wonders if maybe there is more to this ceremony -- to Ardyn -- than he thought. Maybe it’s as difficult for Ardyn to accept someone’s promise of loyalty to him as it is for Gladio to make those promises in the first place.

There’s a strange breeze as they turn to leave the chamber, and he’s not sure where it’s coming from but it smells, for just a moment, like flowers.

“Meddlesome woman,” Ardyn mutters next to him, but doesn’t elaborate.

He doesn’t need to. The fields in Tenebrae might have all been aflame when they arrived at the train station all those years ago, but thanks to the memorial garden, Gladio knows a sylleblossom when he smells one.


	4. Chapter 4

Rebuilding a kingdom is not an easy thing.

Lucis makes a slow but sure recovery from the ravages of war and the decade of daemons that followed. Outlying towns are quicker to recover than Insomnia, of course, but it’s the restoration of the Crown City -- slow going as it may be -- that shows just how much ground they’ve gained since the Dawn.

One year becomes two, and then three. Noct wears his kingship easily now, a strong and beloved ruler who still elicits tears and awed whispered words of thanks from his citizens. He gets mercilessly teased for his beard and his continued fondness for cargo pants from Ignis, Prompto and Gladio, who remain ever at his side -- and in his bed -- as promised.

Perhaps it is the _other_ king of Lucis who is the most surprising. The people are not aware of his existence, but Ardyn works behind the scenes in unexpected ways; helping Ignis with a variety of bureaucratic tasks and even lending his expertise in medicine, agriculture and chocobo-rearing, though he rarely, if ever, goes near the birds himself. They tend to sense his daemons and react poorly, and there’s only one bird that will have much of anything to do with him -- a black chocobo chick, a descendant of the one they found as an egg before leaving for Altissia.

It’s his help with the chocobos that finally allows Ardyn to make some inroads with Prompto, who -- despite his innate cheerfulness and huge heart -- has had the hardest time of all forgiving Ardyn. Not so much for what Ardyn did to _him_ , or even Lunafreya -- but for the MTs, those bizarre soulless clones that all wore Prompto’s face, and for his father, a man who Ardyn still, after everything, swore he counted as one of a handful of friends.

“You turned him into a machine gun worm monster thing and it _chased me_ ,” Prompto said, when Ardyn delivered that particular line.

“Well I never suggested _he_ turn himself into a daemon,” was Ardyn’s reply to that. “I would have seen him safely through the Night and honestly, he had quite a strength of will so if anyone could survive being imbued with so much daemonic essence, I really would have thought it would be him.”

“Let’s not talk about this again,” Prompto said, backing out of the room with wide eyes. “It’s weird, and creepy, and….yeah.”  

But the chocobo thing helps, enough that eventually Prompto _does_ fix up Ardyn’s car. Afterward, he comes back and tells the others, “He’s, like, the worst driver. The _worst_ . I don’t think there was much traffic when he learned to drive, which, by the way, he only did in Gralea because, and I quote, _only plebians drove themselves in my day, Prompto._ Anyway, he definitely has never driven in city traffic because I swear to Shiva, he can’t figure out what _Yield_ means and it’s like the concept of a four-way stop baffles him.”

“Must run in the family,” Ignis demurs, sipping his coffee.

“Hey!” Noct gives Ignis an affronted look. “I get the _idea_ behind four-way stops. I just think it makes more sense if you’re turning right that you go first.”

“That’s what Ardyn said!” Prompto says, and laughs.

Ignis sighs.

As for Gladio, his duties as Shield means he is the only one who accompanies Noct and Ardyn to Angelgard, where Noct ends up with a new royal weapon to add to his Armiger -- a large, fuck-off scythe.

Ardyn is quiet when they’re exploring Angelgard, which has taken on something of a mythic quality since the Dawn. The island is protected and access is restricted by order of the Crown, as it’s dangerous and a little unstable. Noct, who spends a lot of time with Ardyn, clearly notices that Ardyn’s bombastic demeanor has eased into an almost chill silence when they come across the chains in which he was bound for two thousand years.

“You okay?” Noct asks, in his usual kind way, placing a hand on Ardyn’s shoulder. Ardyn looks briefly startled, and Gladio wonders how often anyone touches Ardyn in gentleness, if anyone touches him at all. Gladio wonders if this is the first time someone _has,_ and what that must feel like, here in the place where Ardyn was bound for centuries.

Gladio steps forward, flanking Ardyn, and mimics Noct’s touch on Ardyn’s other shoulder. He squeezes gently, thinking that despite it being a few years since he swore an oath, this is the first time he’s ever felt like Ardyn’s Shield.  

“An odd thing, to see this place again.” Ardyn tilts his head back, but his attempt at nonchalance isn’t fooling either Gladio _or_ Noct. Gladio can feel a fine tremble in Ardyn’s muscles, and can see his hands fisted at his sides.

Ardyn glances over at Noct; from the sudden stark chill and the sickly-sweet smell of rot, Gladio has no doubt it’s the Scourge gazing out at the King of Light from Ardyn’s bright gold eyes. “I _hate_ you, you realize. For this. For being who you are, and not sending me to death when you should have.”

“You know why I didn’t,” Noct says, unperturbed as ever. He doesn’t move his hand, and neither does Gladio.

“You’re a fool, Noctis,” Ardyn hisses, and it’s rare that he ever calls Noctis anything but _Noct_ or, in his moments where he can’t seem to help himself, a snide _Your Majesty_ . There’s a sibilant hiss on the _s_ of his name that makes Gladio stand a bit straighter.

He thinks of that naga long ago in the cave, crying for its baby. Maybe it was a fault of theirs, that they thought all daemons mindless.

“Yeah, maybe. But you’ll see. We can leave, if you want.”

Ardyn’s head turns toward Gladio, slowly, like in one of Iggy and Prompto’s favorite horror movies. Sure enough, his eyes have bled to black and his face is corpse-white and broken by inky streaks of rot. “You would stand at my side, Shield?”

“Pretty sure I am right now, yeah,” Gladio says, but it’s difficult -- Ardyn, like this, is not a common sight. He’s so used to the bitingly sarcastic, oddly helpful bureaucrat who likes talking about history, plays card games with Prompto and is the only person who will ever sit down for a game of Scrabble with Ignis -- and maybe even win -- that it’s easy, sometimes, to forget _this is who he is. What he is. Who you have sworn to protect._

But he looks at the chains, thinks of Gilgamesh alone for eternity in his cave, surrounded by bones and his own broken promise. His chin goes up and he meets Ardyn’s eyes until the shift happens, and Ardyn just looks vaguely tired and maybe, just maybe, a little pleased.

“Enough. Noct, well done, you have your scythe so let’s be out of here. When I do finally meet my end, though, and they fashion an appropriate royal tomb for my likeness as they will absolutely do....leave a note saying they should put it bloody anywhere but here, would you?”

“Sure,” Noct says, and then, “We’ll say they should build it around your car and put it at the Coernix Station near Cauthess. How’s that?”

“Acceptable, I suppose,” Ardyn announces, then sweeps past them -- turning his back on the chains that once shackled him and walking out into the sunlight he once banished.

Noct flashes the scythe into his hand, and of course his is blue rather than Ardyn’s crimson. He waves it around and grins a little, looking like a little kid with a new toy. “This _is_ pretty badass,” he says.

“Better than a garden hoe,” says Gladio. “Now you can really show those vegetables they messed with the wrong king.”

“Damn right,” says Noct.

***

It’s a few days later that Gladio walks into the throne room and finds Noct straddling Ardyn’s lap, hands in Ardyn’s ridiculous hair, the two of them kissing like they’re actually trying to argue instead.

Gladio just shakes his head and ducks out of the room. Figures. “Two more weeks and I would have won that bet with Iggy,” he mutters, stationing himself by the door so the Kings of Lucis are not interrupted. “Goddamn it, Noct.”

When the doors open again, Noct strides out looking well-fucked and smug, one of Ardyn’s ridiculous scarves draped around his neck. Ardyn looks a bit dazed, but there’s a genuine smile on his face even though his hair is a mess and his vest is still unbuttoned, it’s probably the most _human_ Gladio has ever seen him look.

“What?” Ardyn demands, chin raised. He and Noct look nothing alike -- which they wouldn’t, honestly, given that _Gladio_ and Noctis are technically closer relations, thanks to all the nobility intermarrying over the past two millennia -- but they definitely both have that whole _haughty king_ thing down. “Do you have something to say, Gladiolus?”

“Just, if you had waited a couple weeks, I might’ve split the gil with you I would’ve won from the bet I had with Ignis,” says Gladio.

Ardyn looks thoughtful, then pats him on the shoulder. He’s started doing things like that more often, Gladio has noticed. He’s also noticed that he doesn’t mind. “Next time,” Ardyn says, leaning in as if they’re co-conspirators, “Let me in on the bet and I’ll make sure you win.”

“Ain’t that cheating?” Gladio asks, unable to avoid thinking about the mark he can see on Ardyn’s neck that has to be from Noct’s mouth. He knows just how good Noct’s mouth feels, especially leaving marks like that on his neck while riding his cock.

“I won’t tell if you won’t,” Ardyn says., voice low and warm, before he leaves to follow Noct. Gladio would swear he’s humming something, some little tune Prompto always used to sing after they mowed down a monster or two.

Later, when he has Noct riding him nice and slow like he likes, Noct tilts his head down and smiles, drags his nails over the lines of Gladio’s tattoo. “He’s good in bed,” he says, and laughs when Gladio hisses through his teeth, hips pushing up to get deeper. “Bet he’d love to have you fuck him.”

Gladio doesn’t say anything but he maybe the thought gets him going, just a little. If Ardyn has any interest in Prompto or Ignis, he’s never shown it; there’s something Gladio likes about the idea, though he’s never once been jealous or possessive of Noct or the others.

But the thought of serving his kings … _both_ of them … he can’t deny it’s appealing, and as Noct moves on top of him, sinuous and sexy and with a knowing little smirk, it’s also the thing that gets him off.


	5. Chapter 5

There’s nothing all that remarkable about the day. It’s a Wednesday afternoon, there aren’t any council sessions scheduled and no one needs them to be anywhere. The Kings of Lucis are enjoying a spar in the late afternoon sun, and Gladio is half-watching, admiring the way Noct and Ardyn warp strike around the arena like two little kids playing magic tag.

He doesn’t know when he notices the change, but he does; there’s a subtle shift in the tension in the room, as the playfulness bleeds out into something knife-edged and dangerous. He shifts and tries to focus, because Ardyn might be two-thousand and some change and Noct is nearing thirty-five, but they still move almost too fast for the human eye to track.

It takes Gladio a moment to realize what’s different. It no longer looks like they’re playing a game of tag, but chase. As in, Noct is going after Ardyn with far more purpose, and Gladio thinks maybe it’s something they worked out, that there’s some objective of which he’s unaware and this is just what they intended all along. Some version of _capture the flag,_ even if he can’t see what they might possibly be using for the flag.

But then he sees Ardyn manifest a shield from his Armiger, just in time to knock a blow away from Noct’s sword. Not just any sword -- _Regis’s_ sword.

Gladio has never seen Noct spar with it, ever. He uses it for ceremonial purposes and that’s about all; like Iggy, he tends to fight with daggers, in and out quick, up close and personal.

He’s advancing on Ardyn like a coeurl stalking an anak, backing Ardyn up toward the wall with deadly, proficient grace.

 _Just like I taught him,_ Gladio thinks, and wonders why the sight makes him so uneasy.

Ardyn warps away in a flash of red, but it’s only just in time to miss the thrust of Noct’s sword. Gladio frowns. “Geez, Noct. You two have a fight or something?”

Ardyn doesn’t ooze malice like ozone follows lightning, but he’s still _Ardyn._ Gladio thinks he was probably just as infuriating as a human, even without the daemons.

Noct ignores him and takes off in whirl of icy-blue to chase Ardyn some more. The playfulness is gone, but it’s the silence that tells Gladio something’s off. Ardyn does not spar silently. He spars with his words as much as he does with that wicked scythe, his taunts are ridiculous and sometimes right on the edge of cruel, or downright absurd enough that he scores a touch just because he’s made someone laugh.

(Gladio still remembers him getting a touch on Ignis because of some pun he threw out in Old Lucian. Lack of sight doesn’t slow Ignis down, but a clever pun in a dead language is apparently enough to render him helpless with laughter.

Ignis explained it later, but no one else thought it was funny.)

No one’s laughing now, and Ardyn isn’t saying anything -- he’s breathing hard, clearly on the defensive as he parries Noct’s blows with scythe and shield and a mace that Gladio’s never seen him actually use before.

“Noct, what the fuck,” Gladio snaps, when Ardyn stumbles and Noct -- Noct just raises his sword, advancing like even having Ardyn on his knees isn’t going to stop him. “I think you probably won this round.”

Ardyn flashes away, and the only sound in the room is the tip of his father’s glaive striking the stone where Ardyn knelt only a second before.

“Noct!” Gladio steps in front of him. “Enough, what are you _doing_?”

Noct looks at him, and there’s nothing in his eyes but steely, cool resolve. It’s a look he’s seen on Noct’s face since childhood, the _I will do this and you won’t stop me_ one borne of thousands of years of royal blood and the favor of the gods themselves, power and privilege and Noct’s own personal magnetism. “Get out of my way, Gladio.”

“Look, I know how he is and he probably pissed you off, but maybe talk it out instead of trying to give him a haircut.” Normally Gladio would throw in an offhand _even if he needs one_ remark, but this is not normal.

“I’m not trying to give him a haircut,” Noct says, staring past Gladio at wherever Ardyn is behind him.

“Yeah? Could’ve fooled me. Looks like you’re trying to behead him.”

“That’s right.”

Blinking, Gladio grabs Noct by the shoulder like he can shake some sense into him. “You’re -- what the hell, Noct, _why_?”

“Because it’s time,” Noct says, simply, shoving Gladio’s hand off his shoulder.

“For you to cool off, maybe,” Gladio mutters. He doesn’t try and grab Noct’s shoulder again, but he straightens his shoulders and crosses his arms over his chest, making himself a block between Noct and Ardyn, who is still uncharacteristically silent behind him. “No one is beheading anyone.”

“Sorry, Gladio, but that’s not up to you,” Noct says. “I’m the only one who can kill Ardyn, remember?”

“Yeah, but...Ardyn, hey, you ask Noct here to kill you?” Gladio turns his head slightly to address Ardyn without taking his eyes off Noct.

“No,” says Ardyn, and it’s the simple one-word answer that says to Gladio that this is _serious_ , that Noct really thinks he needs to kill Ardyn _now._

“He do something I don’t know about?” Gladio demands, forcing Noct’s attention back to him. “Manifest a few daemons to eat some unsuspecting citizens? Drown the sun again? Cause it sure looks like it’s still up there, to me.” He points to the domed skylight above.

“Perhaps he thinks it is more fitting for my crimes, to send me to oblivion when I have admitted I no longer wish to be there.”

Blinking, Gladio considers this and then gives a shake of his head. “That really ain’t Noct’s style.” And they’re _sleeping together_ . That is definitely not Noct, to go to bed with someone just so he could calmly and mercilessly _behead them during a sparring match._  “You want to tell me what this is about, Your Majesty?” he asks Noct.

“Do I need to?” Noct’s voice is flat. Gladio feels like he’s woken up in some crazy reality in which the last six years never happened. “He’s the Starscourge. He killed _Luna_.”

“Yeah, but...you knew that when you let him live,” Gladio says, resting one hand on his sword hilt, the other raised like he’s trying to talk sense into some angry drunk guy at a bar who wants to get in a fight for no reason. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but he’s been pretty helpful rebuilding the country. I get that he did some fucked up shit, but this isn’t the way we go about it. If you want him tried for war crimes, then you do it correctly. You can’t just _execute_ him for no reason.”

“I can do whatever I want,” Noct says. “I’m the King. The people think he’s a myth, a legend. Why should he get to live when my father, when _Luna,_ had to die?”

“Noct,” Gladio says, carefully. “Your father died protecting Lucis, and my father died protecting his king. There’s no shame in that. Lunafreya was...you know what was happening to her. Ardyn killed her, yeah, but she wouldn’t have lived after making the covenants. You _know_ this. And yeah, that doesn’t excuse what Ardyn did but...why is today the day this matters enough for you to kill him?”

“I don’t need to give you a reason,” Noct says, but he won’t meet Gladio’s eyes. He raises his sword. “Out of my way, Gladio. Ardyn, if you kneel, I’ll make it quick. We both know I’ll win if you keep fighting me, but if you want to, I guess I can’t stop you.”

“Oh, I’ve heard that lie before, Noct. _Come quietly, Ardyn, and we’ll see you’re kept somewhere safe until we find a cure._ I didn’t believe it then, and I don’t believe it now,” Ardyn hisses, from behind him. “You want your pound of flesh, King of Kings? _Come and take it_.”

“Gladly,” Noct snarls, and shoves Gladio as hard as he can while he warps away.

Things happen very quickly after that. Lights flash as they warp around each other, ending with

Ardyn on his back with Noctis standing over him, the tip of his father’s sword poised over Ardyn’s heart -- if indeed there is one there for it to pierce.

Ardyn’s ace flashes into the mask of the Scourge -- the black-mouthed snarl, the white skin, the eyes glowing gold in a sea of ink dark. “So, this is how you would end it?”

“Yeah,” Noct says. “It is.” He raises the sword to deliver what Gladio can only assume will be a killing blow, heart or no heart, and Gladio moves without thinking and thrusts his own blade out to parry Noct’s and knock it away.

The steel _clang_ of blade-on-blade echoes in the room. Gladio can hear his own heartbeat in his ears, taste something acrid at the back of his throat but he doesn’t move. “I won’t let you do this.”

Noct just _stands_ there, his sword caught by Gladio’s. “You’d raise your blade against me? The King of Lucis?”

“I took an oath, Your Majesty,” Gladio bites out between his teeth. “To protect the Kings of Lucis. That means even from each other and yeah, I wouldn’t let Ardyn murder _you_ for no reason so I won’t let you do it to him, either.”

“It’s treason,” Noct says. “To disobey me.”

Seriously? Who _is_ this? If Ardyn wasn’t right there on the floor, Gladio might have his suspicions about who this really was because it is certainly not any version of Noct that Gladio has ever met. “It’s my _job_ ,” Gladio argues. “I’m his Shield, too. I don’t know why you think now’s the time to kill him, but it isn’t and I won’t let you do it.”

“He’s the Starscourge,” Noct says, as if somehow Gladio’s missed this fact. “He was responsible for the invasion that killed your father and ruined the city. The ten years you spent out in the Dark? That’s all his fault. Luna. Ravus. The children who screamed when they saw the sun rise the first time, because they thought the sky was on fire. It’s all his fault, Gladio. All of it.”

“That don’t change the facts, Noct. I took an oath because you wanted me to, and I won’t break it. If he’s to be tried for crimes against humanity that’s one thing, but vigilante justice with no chance for him to defend himself? You’re the one who said he was treated unfairly by the gods _and_ the Lucis Caelum line. You gave him a chance to live. He’s kept the daemons at bay, and he might be the Starscourge but he ain’t done anything more evil than be a smug motherfucker every now and then.”

Gladio’s arm is aching, but he refuses to drop the sword or give an inch, even though his muscles are trembling from exhaustion. “I honor and respect you as my king, but I won’t break my oath as his Shield. I won’t. You want to kill him, I guess you’ll have to go through me.”

“You’d die for him? For Ardyn?” Noct asks, and the question hangs heavy in the air, expectant like that moment before a storm breaks.

Gladio blinks the sweat from his eyes and tilts his chin up. “Your Majesty. I will die protecting the king as I have sworn to do, as my father did before me, and yeah, I guess that means I would die for Ardyn.” He can’t help adding, “But you’ll have to kill me for that to happen, and I fully intend to knock some sense into you first.”

“So be it,” Noct says, and all of Gladio’s senses sharpen as a thrill of terror races down his spine at the thought of what he’s going to have to do -- and then Noct smiles, holds his hand out, and his father’s sword vanishes in a sparkle of blue light. “I told you it would work,” he says.

Not to Gladio. To _Ardyn_.

Gladio finally lowers his sword and sheathes it, trying to catch his breath and figure out what the hell just happened. “What? What would work? Did you just -- was that some kind of fucking _test_?”

“Yeah. Sorry, big guy. But...well.” Noct holds his hands up and takes a step closer. “I sort of had to do it.”

“Really,” says Gladio. “You _had_ to.”

“Yeah,” says Noct. “I did. Well, I could have done it any time, but I was pretty sure it’d work so I figured I might as well get it out of the way.”

“Get it out of the way,” says Ardyn, still on the floor. “ _Get it out of the way._ I changed my mind, Gladio. Behead me. You do it. Please.”

“Gladio can't kill you and you know it, Ardyn. Stop being so dramatic,” Noct says, to Ardyn. He smiles. “Hey, you did pretty good with that whole _come and take your pound of flesh, Chosen King,_  thing, though.”

“I’ve had two millennia to think up my lines for this particular play, Noct. I’ve quite a few ready at a moment’s notice.” Ardyn sits up, pushes his hair out of his face, and glances up at Gladio. He laughs. “Oh, but _Your Majesty,_ our Shield looks _most_ displeased.”

“He is,” Gladio says, flatly. “And if someone doesn’t explain, _now_ , you can get another one.”

“Tsk, tsk, but they won’t look nearly as good as you do in those tight leather trousers, Gladio. Hurry, Noct, tell him all about how you saved us all.”

“I did, though,” Noct says. “He sounds sarcastic -- well, he always does -- but I did. Look, Gladio, remember how you’ve always known I wasn’t telling you the whole truth about what happened when Ardyn and I fought the first time?”

“Now’s a great time to admit you’ve been lying,” Gladio huffs. “That hole you're digging is just about deep enough for me to dump you into it.”

Noct’s smile is fond, and his eyes are warm -- nothing like that terrifyingly cold visage of earlier, and it strikes Gladio that is how Noct must have looked, the first time he faced Ardyn in the ruins of his kingdom, on the rubble of his father’s throne. “I couldn’t tell you, big guy. That was the rule. See, when I went to fight Ardyn before the dawn, I saw Luna. And she touched my hand, and then I saw what I needed to fix.”

“Fix?” Gladio asks, lost. “I thought you were supposed to fix it by killing Ardyn?”

“Nah. That wasn’t a fix as much as….well, it would be like that time Prompto got mad because he couldn’t fix that old junker TV he found in a secondhand shop, so he threw it off the balcony of my apartment, remember?”

“Yeah,” says Gladio. “I do. I had to pay to fix the damage to the roof of the official Crownsguard car it landed on.”

Despite being the King of Light, Chosen King and savior of Lucis….Noct actually blushes and looks a little guilty. “Oh. Oops. Anyway, killing Ardyn would have been the throwing-the-television-off-the-balcony version of fixing it.”

“But the television was already broken,” says Gladio. 

“Perhaps a better metaphor would be _throwing the baby out with the bathwater,_ ” Ardyn offers. “If you insist on a figurative way of saying _an overreaction._ ”

“Coming from you, that’s terrifying,” says Gladio, then gestures to Noct to continue. “Okay, so Luna showed you the sensible, less destructive way to fix things?”

“Well, yeah,” says Noct. “She’s a healer. It’s what they do.”

“Gods give us the ability to heal because they cannot do it themselves,” Ardyn says. “Creation is a violent and painful thing. Healing is intricate and detailed. It’s possible I’m a bit biased, but healers have a certain _finesse_ the gods lack. You don’t need finesse to scoop out rock and fill it with a tidal wave.”

Gladio ignores the metaphysics for the moment. “Okay, so….Luna showed you how to fix what, exactly?”

“Two thousand years ago, Ardyn took the Scourge inside himself, right?” Noct says, moving closer. “That’s because Bahamut knew Ardyn was strong enough not to lose himself in the daemons, but...the rest of it got a little complicated because gods don’t really know how people work, that’s they why they need messengers and oracles. Bahamut assumed that when the Crystal chose Somnus after rejecting Ardyn, they’d just fall in line and rule as dual kinds of light and dark. But that’s not what happened, because people are motivated by things gods aren’t, like fear, and jealousy. Somnus was jealous of Ardyn’s kingship, so he took it when the opportunity was given. Gilgamesh was afraid of what Ardyn had become, so he stayed his hand when he shouldn’t have. That’s what went wrong, so we had to do it the _right_ way.”

“So we three had to, what, reenact some kinda passion play from two thousand years ago, all because people didn’t act the way the gods expected the first time?” Gladio hits his forehead with his palm. “You’re kidding me.”

“The reason they used the gods as fuel for their technology in Solheim is because they used to believe the best of gods were no better than the worst of men,” Ardyn adds. “In other words, giant beings of destruction aren’t the best when it comes to predicting human behavior because they don’t behave as humans.” He pauses. “Of course, that doesn’t mean you should use their divine ichor to power your trains, but, well. You live, you learn.”

“You used daemon essence to make sentient robots,” Noct says, pointing. “I don’t think you learned anything. Anyway, Luna explained it kinda like...a circuit. The way to combat the Scourge would have been for Somnus and Ardyn to rule in tandem, because it creates balance. But when Somnus chose to betray Ardyn, and Gilgamesh chose not to intervene, it left the circuit open. Bahamut’s answer was to, uh. The equivalent of just axing the power source and, um. Killing the wire?”

“You should have paid more attention in high school physics,” Gladio says, shaking his head. “And remind me to never let you fuck with the breaker box if the electricity goes out. But okay, I guess I get it. Bahamut wasn’t fixing the circuit, he was flipping the off switch?”

“Totally what I just said,” Noct glowers, hands on his hips. “Come on, that was literally the same thing! Flipping the breaker, throwing the baby off the balcony with the television --”

“Here lies Ardyn Lucis Caelum, slain by the Chosen King’s horrible use of mixed metaphors,” Ardyn says, placing a hand over his heart. 

“Yeah, well, no offense, but I can’t think of a better way to kill you than death by overly-complicated language,” Gladio can’t resist saying.

Ardyn smiles. “True enough, I suppose.”

“Okay,” Gladio says, exhaling slowly. “I think I get it. Noct lets Ardyn live _and_ be king, even though he’s the Starscourge...Ardyn chooses not to be vengeful and protect Lucis from the daemons instead of using them to destroy it...and I stand by my vow to defend Ardyn even though he’s the Scourge incarnate...that closed the circuit?”

“Yeah, basically,” says Noct. “And a closed circuit...well. It brings light.”

“Huh.” There are a few things about this that don’t make sense, namely that Gladio isn’t related to Gilgamesh -- wait is he? -- but given this is all about a giant crystal given to humans by a god who wanted to stop an infection caused by _another_ god…whatever, fine, maybe it’s enough that it worked. “What would have happened if you’d just killed Ardyn? The sun wouldn’t have come back?”

“It would have, but it’s kinda like Ardyn said, before,” Noct says. “About subtlety, and nuances and all that. The sun would have come back, but as Luna told me, there’s a lot of other kinds of light in the world and they’re just as important. People’s inner lights, or whatever. I don’t know, we didn’t have a long time to talk about it. She basically told me I had a choice. I could kill Ardyn and destroy the Scourge, then join her in the Beyond. And...I thought about it. Because I wanted to see her, and I still do.” Noct’s voice gets a little choked. “Or I could do it the other way, _her_ way, but that wasn’t quite as easy to predict the outcome. Healing something, fixing it, really is harder than just, uh. Throwing the television out with the breaker bath water.”

“My torment, it is truly without end,” Ardyn mutters.

“So you took a chance,” Gladio says, shaking his head. “I’m damn glad you did, because it meant you’re here, and some of this shit is lost on me but…” he slides his gaze over to Ardyn. “I thought you _wanted_ oblivion?”

“Oh, well, let’s not let what _I_ want get in the way, why should it?” Ardyn asks. “It never has before.”

“I gave him the choice, too,” Noct says. “I said I could give him what Luna promised, before she died.”

“What was that?” Gladio asks, trying to think back to that day -- all he can remember is rain and more rain, the sheer terror of seeing Noctis battling a _giant sea serpent in the sky_ and then the absolute numbing fear that gripped him when he saw Noct lying still on the altar next to Lunafreya.

Noct gives Ardyn a pointed look, and Ardyn sighs and says with no small degree of petulance, “She promised me that all who were in thrall to the darkness would know peace.”

“Oblivion isn’t peace,” Noct says. “It’s nothing. And vengeance is something, but it’s not peaceful.”

Ardyn walks over to Noctis and tips his chin up with two gloved fingers. “Why would you care at all about that, Noct? You needn’t worry about the inner peace of a man who made certain to take yours from you. There were many times I aided you, but it was always for a selfish end and never for your benefit. I’m still the Scourge and I still -- I still _hate_ you, sometimes, more than I can ever express. It burns in me like a fire, and I dream of pouring dark into your veins, tearing the world to pieces and ruling it with you at my side in chains.”

“Yeah,” Gladio interrupts. “Don’t do that. I wasn’t going to let Noct behead you, and I’m not gonna let you turn Noct into some daemon puppet consort over a world of ruin.”

“Pity, that,” Ardyn says, still stroking Noct’s face. “I wasn’t lying when I said you’d look lovely in chains.”

“I don’t want to rule over a broken world, but we can talk about the chain thing,” says Noct, remarkably unperturbed by Ardyn’s dystopic fantasies. “And I know, you’re the Starscourge. You’ll probably always feel that way, but...you know, the Founder King was a pretty fierce warrior, right?”

“That’s what they say,” Gladio says, and then, with a laugh, “He sure gave us fits, remember?”

“I’ve seen better,” says Ardyn, sounding huffy. 

“Well, the Founder King might have been a warrior, but...the first King of Lucis was a healer, so maybe I thought the last one should be one, too.”

Ardyn tilts his head, and Gladio can see his fingers tighten on Noct’s chin -- because Noct winces, but doesn’t pull away. “My foolish, beautiful Noct. There were times when I thought waiting for you was a mistake, and that you were destined to be nothing but a crushing disappointment. I suppose I was wrong about that, in the end.”

“Hey, like I said,” Noct says, reaching up and removing Ardyn’s grip with a takedown Gladio taught him when he was twelve. “I’m worth the wait.”

“I suppose we’ll see about that,” says Ardyn, and leans down to kiss him.

Gladio can’t say he knows all that much about metaphysics, prophecies or the intricacies of creation, but he’s been a warrior long enough to know all about what it takes to heal something when it’s broken. Mostly just time and patience, and the knowledge that healing never comes without a little pain. It’s just the body’s way of saying _I’m still here, I’m alive, no one cut off my arm because the bone is broken, I’ll be okay if you just let me be._

Gladio has no idea if that works with, say, a person who is in essence a sack of daemons in a suit, but apparently, they’re going to find out.

Still. He clears his throat. “Still kinda mad about being tricked into performing a part in some cosmic reenactment I never auditioned for.”

“Oh, get in line _,_ darling,” says Ardyn, laughing in a way that sounds like all the daemons are joining in with him and like maybe it isn’t quite a laugh at all. “Get in _line_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're curious, the joke/pun Ardyn shouted at Ignis is as follows (don't blame me when you groan because it's terrible:) 
> 
> "Did you hear about the frog that learned Old Lucian prose composition? The other frogs said of him, _scribit, scribit_." 
> 
> (Scribit = Latin for "he writes") 
> 
> I told you it was bad.


	6. Chapter 6

Gladio is summoned to King Ardyn’s private chambers, and he realizes that it’s the first time he’s ever actually been there. 

Ardyn doesn’t sleep, and spends a lot of time in the dead of night wandering about the streets (“just looking, not bedeviling,”) and making notes about possible projects for reconstruction -- though Noct says he’s also fond of late-night diners and perching in the way-back booth with a newspaper and his hat pulled down low. He can disguise his appearance, but he says he rarely bothers. 

It’s a compelling image, the idea of the King of Night wandering about dressed like a used car salesman and making notes in his florid handwriting about  _ we should really improve the drainage here, you’re just asking for trouble when the rains come.  _

Gladio goes with him a few times, and he doesn’t mention when Ardyn’s accent thickens and his speech turns slightly archaic; honestly, he tunes Ardyn out a lot when he  _ isn’t  _ reverting back to an ancient king or whatever he’s doing. 

“He does that in bed, sometimes,” Noct says, when Gladio relates this. “I don’t know for sure, but I think maybe he acts more like himself at night because the daemons are quieter, then? They don’t like the sun, which is why he doesn’t go outside very much when it’s daytime.” 

They talk about the Scourge like it is just another affliction for which accommodations can be made, and for all intents and purposes, Gladio supposes, that’s what it is. 

Tonight he makes his way to the rooms Ardyn has chosen as his own. They are modest enough for the most part, and tucked back so they get the least amount of sunlight. He’s fashioned heavy drapes on the windows, so there’s a soft perpetual  _ dimness  _ in the room that isn’t unpleasant -- Gladio’s glad the sun is back and he’ll never forget the years of darkness, but it’s high summer and he’d sort of forgotten how hot Insomnia could get with full sun beating down on so much concrete. 

Noct is sprawled in one of the chairs in Ardyn's room, looking lazy and self-satisfied, wearing a pair of black dress pants and a simple black button-down shirt, his feet bare. Ardyn is as dressed-down as Gladio’s ever seen him, in a simple pair of pants that almost look like they’re made out of linen, and a blinding yellow t-shirt with the black outline of a chocobo on it and the words KWEH! written beneath.

“Prompto,” Noct says, before Gladio can ask. 

“Wow. Who needs the sun when you have that color?” Gladio resists the urge to shade his eyes. “I’m guessing it wasn’t you that came up with the Lucian black color scheme.” 

“Certainly not. Come now, Gladio, how could you think such a thing of me? No, I’ve always had an appreciation for color and design --” 

“All of them, at once,” Noct offers, and Gladio snorts. 

“But my dear brother Somnus was colorblind, so likely after he strung me up he went with something simple that he could wear without thinking too much about it. White might have shown the stains of his blood-betrayal, and he looked  _ dreadful  _ in yellow. Why, he looked like an inkblot on chocobo-back. Rather like a scowly exclamation mark atop a bird.”  

Gladio has no idea if Ardyn will ever forgive Somnus, or if maybe this is how they  _ were  _ with each other before Ardyn became the Starscourge. There’s always a bite in his voice when Ardyn speaks of him, but perhaps that’s just a wound that's not yet had time to heal. 

“You’re chatty tonight,” Gladio says, as he enters. He’s got a pretty good idea why he’s been called here, though, so he bows and says, “Your Majesties. What do you require of your Shield this evening?” 

“Isn’t it obvious?” Ardyn reaches out, and draws his fingers down Gladio’s cheek. His touch is slightly cool, though Gladio doesn’t know if that’s because of daemons or because he, himself, is a little flushed. “We require you to  _ serve  _ us, Shield.” 

“If you want to,” Noct adds, thoughtful as always. 

“Of course he does,” Ardyn purrs, stepping in close. “I can tell.” 

“Oh, yeah? How exactly can you tell?” Gladio asks, inhaling sharply as Ardyn leans in and mouths at his neck -- getting right to it, then. “Noct been talking in his sleep?” 

“Noctis? We're luckily he _breathes_ in his sleep,” Ardyn says, expertly undoing the fastenings on Gladio’s jacket. “But no. I’ve the very essence of devils in my veins, Gladio. I know when someone’s tempted.” 

Gladio tilts his head and gives Noct a  _ look _ . “Is that so.” 

“Mmm.” Ardyn pulls back and pushes his suddenly-undone jacket off his shoulders. “You’re free to say no. Despite my nefarious past and heinous crimes, I’ve never been one for force.” 

“Not sayin’ no,” Gladio says, gruffly. “But I do wanna know if you’re gonna talk this much.” 

“Oh, totally,” says Noctis, from the chair where he’s watching like some decadent king sprawled on his throne. “But he’s not bad at it when he gets going.” 

“Your Majesty flatters me,” Ardyn says, eyes moving up and down Gladio’s now-bare torso. “You are quite a finely built man, aren’t you? My.” Ardyn’s hands slide over Gladio’s chest, leaving shivers in their wake. “Tell me, Gladio, will you service your king tonight?” 

“Just the one?” Gladio asks, and he, too, reaches out to touch -- mainly to get that shirt off Ardyn, because the color really is awful. And he’s interested in the body that is beneath the garishly colored novelty tee, because it is firm and well-muscled, with a smattering of chest hair the same color as the hair atop his head. Gladio slides his hand through it and tugs a little. “So. That’s natural.” 

“It is indeed. A pity it never made its way down through the bloodline. Purple always was the color of royalty.” Ardyn slides a hand into Gladio’s hair and pulls him close to kiss him. 

This isn’t a surprise, they’ve been dancing around the possibility since Gladio put himself between Noct’s sword and Ardyn’s black heart. And before that, Noct liked to talk about it sometimes, about watching Gladio pin Ardyn down and fuck him hard. 

Ardyn kisses like he talks; fast and dizzying and eloquent, and Gladio tries his best to reciprocate. There’s an odd moment where his brain says  _ you are kissing the Starscourge  _ but it’s easily quieted because...this is Ardyn, and he’s more than that. Infuriating and maybe still a  _ little  _ evil in a way that he can't seem to help, intelligent and considerate when he feels like it. Gladio likes the idea of fucking Ardyn, seeing Ardyn lose a little of that composure, almost as much as he liked stripping Ardyn out of that hideous shirt. 

“And Noct is welcome to join in, if he likes,” Ardyn says, when they break apart to breathe. His hands are already working at Gladio’s belt, drifting lower to rub over the bulge between Gladio's legs. “I am so very pleased with you for standing beside me when others have not, and I wanted to give you something in return.” 

“Yeah?” Gladio laughs; his voice is roughened and low, and he’s enjoying how Ardyn looks already, disheveled but not nearly as much as Gladio wants. “What’s that? Is it this?” He reaches down and grabs Ardyn’s ass through those linen pants, smiling when Ardyn gives a little hiss in response and his hips buck forward. “My reward is I get to fuck you?” 

“Is there something else you wanted?” Ardyn asks, as if he can't imagine what that might be. 

Gladio laughs. “Nah,” he says. “This’ll do just fine.”

The night is a long, hazy drawn out memory of pleasure; he strips Ardyn and kisses him, all the way down his chest to his stomach and lower, to a cock that rises flushed and hard from amidst purple curls. He spares a moment to exchange a grin with Noct, who is watching them still from the chair, flush-cheeked, his arousal already tenting his pants.

“I know, right?”  Noct says, grinning a little. "Carpet, meet drapes. It's a match!" 

Ardyn distracts Gladio by tangling his fingers in Gladio’s topknot and pulling. “Your king wishes you to please him, Shield. See to it.” 

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Gladio says, before taking Ardyn’s cock in his mouth. He wonders which has Ardyn moaning -- the title Gladio has never, until this moment, used for Ardyn alone, or the sensation of Gladio deep-throating his cock. 

Knowing Ardyn as he does, it’s probably the former. But it could very well be both -- Gladio's very good at this. 

Fucking Ardyn is -- strange, and wonderful, and it feels  _ good _  just from a physical perspective. Ardyn is response and reactive, and yes, he talks constantly but Noct’s right, it’s much better when it’s about sex rather than vengeance or Ardyn’s thoughts on commissioning murals (of which he has many thoughts) and where they should be placed (of which he has  _ more _ ). 

“That’s so good, yes, fuck me harder, you do how to use that cock of yours, don’t you -- oh your king is so  _ very  _ pleased, harder, make me feel it, yes --” 

He has a filthy mouth and Gladio likes it, and he likes the way he can see Noct watching them from his spot on the chair; pants pulled down finally, his cock in hand as he strokes it in time with Gladio’s thrusts into Ardyn's tight, hot body. 

Ardyn likes being fucked lying on his stomach with Gladio astride him (“Mount me and make me scream, that’s it….”), and his words fall into muffled moans against the pillows of a bed on which he never sleeps. Ardyn’s body is heavy and solid, and despite the coolness of his skin he’s warm inside, tight around Gladio’s cock, and he falls apart and comes into the bedding just like any other man when the friction on his cock is just right. 

“You -- fuck, come all over him, he likes that,” Noct gasps, thigh muscles flexing as he strokes himself. “You look so good fucking him, Gladio, just like I knew you would. Told you that he'd like it." 

Gladio pulls out after Ardyn comes and shifts a little up his body, stroking himself hard and throwing his head back as he comes wet and messy on Ardyn’s back, Noct’s murmured encouragements egging him on. 

When he’s finished he looks over at Noct, who says, “Come here, Gladio,” in that voice of command that Gladio finds so fucking hot and he can’t do anything but obey, sliding off the bed and kneeling before his king; Noctis, who Gladio has loved for so long he can’t remember what it was like not to. 

“Your Majesty,” Gladio breathes, and it’s usually Iggy that gets off on that, calling Noctis by his royal title but it seems like the right thing to do at the moment. 

Noct's eyes gleam like the sky right before the horizon pulls down the sun. That ephemeral dark blue that lasts only a moment before easing into black. “You’re -- so good, fuck, yeah, you want it? Open your mouth --” 

Gladio opens his mouth and tips his head back, and he can feel Ardyn watching while Noct’s cock slides in, one smooth easy glide, and it’s only a few seconds before Gladio swallows and feels Noct come in his mouth as he does so. 

The next time, Gladio fucks Ardyn with the King of Night sprawled on his back, his legs spread and calves resting on Gladio’s shoulders. Ardyn’s filthy diatribe never lets up, and maybe there’s a moment where Gladio sees his eyes gleam bright gold like stars amid sudden inky dark, but it might just be his imagination and either way, he comes as hard as he ever has so maybe it doesn't really matter that much after all. 

***

Later, Gladio reclines on the pillows of the bed and watches while Ardyn -- whose strange physiology manifests in his ability to get hard quickly -- fucks Noct. Gladio loves to fuck Noct, and he loves to  _ watch  _ Noct being fucked, and this is no exception. The noises Noct makes as he kneels and takes Ardyn’s cock are obscene and delicious. 

Ardyn is gentler with Noct than Gladio expects, the first time. He touches him like some kind of precious thing, murmuring to him  _ you’re the only thing in existence that can kill me  _ and  _ take your other lovers as you will but remember, the Gods made you for me and me alone.  _

The second time he’s rougher but Noct clearly likes it, the two of them clutching and clawing at each other as they kiss and come together like a storm. It’s nothing that Gladio is used to; Noct is a generous lover, he likes to be pleasured and he loves to give it in return. There’s something far darker in the way he is with Ardyn, like he's trying to remind Ardyn with lips and teeth and tongue  _I could end this all but I'm not, you're touching me because I'm letting you, because I want you despite what you are._

It’s hot and a little disturbing, but when it’s over Ardyn kisses him gently murmurs something Gladio can’t hear in Noct’s ear; Noct smiles, and rolls over, and is asleep in seconds. 

Gladio dozes but he doesn’t sleep; the bed is unfamiliar, and while he’s used to Noct spending a few nights a week with Ardyn, there’s still two other people in the bed with him even when Noct isn’t there. He misses Prompto’s hair and the way he sometimes giggles in his sleep, and how he sometimes ends up sleeping on _top_ of Gladio because he's nothing but muscle and always cold. The slight smile on Iggy’s face when the twitch of his eyelids say he’s dreaming. 

Noct sleeps like the dead. Gladio's used to it by now, but it still freaks him out sometimes how  _still_ he is, how quiet. 

He gets out of Ardyn’s bed and pulls on his pants, padding out onto the balcony when he sees the door is open, the heavy blackout curtain rippling a bit in the night breeze. Ardyn is standing there, wrapped in a simple black robe, his hair as dark as Noct’s in the dim light. “Can’t sleep?” 

“Not really.” He doesn’t elaborate. Beneath them, Insomnia is a sleepy blur of lights and soft sounds; it’s not the brightly-lit metropolis it once was, but there's enough out there that Gladio thinks maybe one day she’ll earn back her name. Insomnia, the city that never sleeps. “Did your brother name this place after himself?” 

“The city? Unlikely. I would imagine he built his castle on this spot, and called it something like  _ Somnus’s place,  _ and  that turned into  _ In Somnus’s _ or similar.  _ Insomnia  _ means  _ in dreams,  _ and  I cannot imagine my brother was that fond of whimsy.” 

“He wanted us to save you,” Gladio says, remembering the hulking form they’d fought on their way to the throne room. “From your curse.” 

“My curse.” Ardyn leans forward, his hair whipping around his face in the wind. Ardyn has lain spread beneath him, Gladio has taken him in the most intimate of ways, and yet this is somehow the closest he’s ever felt to him. “It was never a curse. I was honored to serve my gods and my people. I reveled in taking the daemons from them. I’ve always been proud of what I could do that others could not.” Ardyn stretches his arm out and curls the fingers of his hand inward, and with his other hand, brushes his fingers lightly over his forearm. “But my brother was pious, and I think he really believed I had somehow angered the gods because if not, how could such a thing befall me? That was the essence of our quarrel. I never thought of it as a curse, this taking of daemons. I thought I was doing what I was meant to do.” 

Gladio thinks he understands what’s happened, what they’ve changed. Somnus never accepted that his brother, as the Scourge, needn’t be an anathema. That he could have been an asset, a healer still, even riddled with daemons and rejected by Bahamut. 

Unlike Noct, who did the opposite. Gave Ardyn a reason to be the Scourge and not be hated. Chose to heal instead of destroy. It seems almost too simple to have worked. 

“Do you think you’ll find it?” Gladio asks, around a yawn. He’s naked and it’s cool out, but that’s all right. He doubts anyone can see him this far up. “Peace?” 

“I have no idea. I do not know what awaits me, when Noct finally takes me to the Beyond at the end of his natural life. I think when it happens, he will destroy the Scourge and tear it from me as the gods always intended. I think that is the only reason why the gods care not for this little delay, and humor us in our talk of healing and inner peace. But as far as what will become of me when my daemons are gone, I do not know. I suppose I shall find out when it happens, but I wonder if I might miss them. I have grown quite used to their presence.” 

Ardyn turns and faces him, leaning back against the railing. “What is it you really want to ask me? If I regret it, the things I’ve done? If I would make a different choice, way back when this city and this kingdom was mine, and mine alone?” 

“Nah.” Gladio shrugs. “Not much point to that. Only way to go is forward. One question, though. If in the future you get another choice -- oblivion, or the Beyond without the Scourge -- which would you choose?” 

“Well, before I would have said oblivion, without question. Now….I suppose I’d like to see my brother again. Graciously accept the apology I am  _ sure  _ he is eager to give me,” Ardyn says, raising his voice as if speaking to someone far away. “But I have become accustomed to them, my daemons. I think that, while I accept they may one day be taken from me...I will keep them close, safe, in lieu of the heart I no longer have.” Ardyn pauses, and then says, so quietly Gladio almost doesn’t hear, “But I think one day, I might like to sleep. To dream. As a man, not a monster. Monsters don’t dream, you see. They only  _ wail _ .” 

Gladio thinks about all the nights he spent out in the Dark. He’d been afraid to sleep, too, because of daemons. Maybe not so different after all, when it came right down to it.

“Your Majesty,” Gladio says gruffly. “Let’s go back to bed.” 

The future is, for once, unknown. The only certainty is that the sun will rise, and their choices are now their own. Maybe that’s the only peace there is. Maybe that's the only peace that really matters. 

**Author's Note:**

> A few things to note:
> 
> a)I went on the assumption that Ardyn was held captive in Angelgard, but this might be jossed thanks to Ep: Ardyn. :D? 
> 
> b)In Episode Gladio, Ignis mentions that Gilgamesh "went into exile at the time of the Founder King," and given Gilgamesh's line that he "served the line of Lucis" (not the exact quote, but close), I assumed he was known to Somnus and Ardyn and served their family in some capacity. I didn't want him to be a Shield, as I have ridiculous backstory in my head about why/how that position came to be, but I did want him to have some kind of role that was similar for this whole thing to work. 
> 
> c)I feel as if the sex scene in this fic was rushed more than I would have liked, so Freosan, you have my promise that I will either write another in this verse for you (if you liked it, of course!) or some other Gladio/Ardyn, because I love the pairing and especially the "share the Shield" dynamic. 
> 
> d)This was not supposed to be a six chapter fic, but I adored writing it and really hope you enjoyed my take on your wonderful prompt.


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